


Worth Fighting For

by TheLadyJ



Series: Without You, I'm a Disaster [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death, Understanding Love, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:22:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyJ/pseuds/TheLadyJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>2 years after Loki destroyed New York and 1 year after his marriage, Steve's life is falling apart. Tony has been Kidnapped and his wife is gone. Steve doesn't care that she's gone, he just wants Tony back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Vows and Broken Bottles

**Author's Note:**

> I had many people request that I continue the story His Captain. This is its continuation. You don't NEED to read His Captain to read this story but I would recommend it.

Chapter 1

The room was dimly lit where he sat, and, he was ok with that. Though his eyes hurt from the tiredness that tried to claim him, he had decided to try and get drunk. As was evident by the empty bottles of rum that littered the floor around him. Not for the first time did he curse the special super soldier serum he had been given all those years ago.

He had thought life was ok, he had been happy, or at least he thought he was. It had taken him a bit to get used to living in the 21st century, it had been so very different, from his own time. But with the help of his team, he had learned to use cell phones, computers and the internet. He even thought he had fallen in love. Well, he supposed he had falling in love, just not with who he thought he had. Steve shook his head, how in the space of 2 years had his life gotten so fucked up? He had thought life had been bad pre serum, during the war, losing Bucky...Ok well losing Bucky was one of the worst things that had ever happened, but he would gladly go back to pre-serum Steve, if it meant the horrors currently plaguing his life would suddenly vanish.

So he sat, on the couch in Stark tower, wishing like hell to all deities, that he could get drunk. Just simply so he could dull the pain of everything that had happened. The worst part, and the part Steve was really trying hard, not to admit to himself, was that, whatever was going on, was about to get much worse.

The door to the room burst open, Steve raised his head to stare at the backlit figure, he had hoped it would be Tony, he needed his best friend.

So much had happened in the last few days, he needed to talk to Tony about, but he couldn't. Steve knew it wasn't Tony at the door. Tony was gone. Julie was gone, only Steve remained, and somehow that had turned out to be the way life went for him. His stomach turned at the thought, he was the only one left. He had somehow survived the war in ice, slept while every one he had ever known and loved had died. Steve was the only one left. He felt the despair take hold of his heart and made a grab for a half empty bottle of whisky, he had switched when the rum had ran dry, sitting next to him.

“Come on big guy,” Clint said, grabbing Steve by the arm and hoisting him from the seat. The bottle of amber liquid fell to the floor and spilled out, Tony was going to be mad when he found out.

“Damn,” Steve said, not really paying attention to Clint.

“You smell Rogers, time to get up and look for Tony.”

“We already know where he is...The witch has him.”

“Thats not where he is, that, is who has him. Now we need to find the witch, and get him back.” Clint, didn't wait for Steve to say anything. Instead he threw Captain America over his shoulder and trudged rather laboriously to Steve's room. Steve was a super soldier after all, he wasn't exactly light, it gave him great pleasure to know that Clint had struggled to carry him. His pre-serum body would have been nothing for Clint to carry. He probably could have thrown him across the room, in all honesty, so even though Steve really wished he could get drunk, the benefits of super solider serum out weight scrawny sick pre-serum Steve.

Clint kicked in the door to the bathroom, turned the water on and dumped Captain America rather unceremoniously into the cold spray of water. Steve yelped at the icy spray, it may have been a warm october day but an ice shower was unnecessary.  


“Clean up and get dressed, Cap. We have a mission.” Steve heard the bathroom door close and knew he was alone. The sound of the shower filled his ear and he stood to remove his clothing. The sopping wet mess that they were, thanks to Clint, were thrown into the corner of the room. With Clint gone, the silence in the tower crashed down around him. The Shower having turned warm, with the twist of a few knobs, beat down on his shoulders, only adding more sorrow to the already heavy shoulders. He felt like Atlas, holding the world on his shoulders. At least Atlas had been a god, Steve was just a man, a man out of time and place, that the world felt really needed to be pushed to a breaking point. Steve had to admit, he was fast reaching his break, if the world didn't somehow right itself soon, Steve was going to lose it.

At least the shower felt good on his weary body.

 

**  
Showered, shaved and ready for action, that was what Steve Rogers looked like. But that was not how he felt. They had been looking for Tony for a week. One whole week they had been without Iron Man. It felt like a lifetime to Steve. He missed his best friend. Tony and Steve had had a hard time getting on even ground in the beginning. It had been hard for Steve to look at Tony, who's eyes so like his father held nothing of man he had known. He had assumed the files that S.H.E.I.L.D had on Tony were correct, that he was selfish, self-center, self righteous, Self-entitled, pompous and pretty much stuck up and useless to world. Steve had made a rash decision on the man and decided he didn't like him. He had been very wrong, and learned that while he was indeed NOTHING like Howard Stark, he was so much better then the man of Steve's past. It had taken them a few weeks to overcome the hurtful things they had both said to each other, but they had. Their tempers for one another subsided and they found an easy camaraderie after a few months. It had been almost 2 years since they had become friends. Steve wanted his friend back.

The Events of the last month amazed Steve, some of it had lead up to the capture of his friend and some was just part of the shit storm Steve had somehow found himself in. To say Steve was having a bad month, was the understatement of the world.  


One month ago Captain America, Iron Man and Hawkeye had met their match. A woman in a suit very much like Tony's only more feminine and green and silver, known now as the Iron Witch, had shown up. Her tech looked like Tony's; she had a reactor, the light was green though and in the shape of a sideways 8, Tony had said it was a symbol for infinity. Steve, had seen it before in his math lessons in school but didn't know much about it.

The day that she had shown up had been a day like any other, which was why they were light on Avengers. Black Widow was on assignment abroad, doing god only knew, well god and Furry. The Hulk was hidden somewhere inside Bruce who had taken off to parts of the world, unknown to Steve, and Thor was back on Asgard.

The Iron Witch had out matched all 3 of them fairly easily. Steve probably could have done some damage to her suit, if he could have gotten close enough, the ground around him had shook so much and moved every time he got close to her, Iron Man was out gunned and out technologied at every turn. 

The woman in the suit had a vast knowledge of the working of Tony's suit and it unsettled him. Hawkeye's arrows couldn't penetrate a her suit, he had wasted a great number of arrows before Steve had called a pull back and tried to re-group. But that had been when the Witch vanished.

They didn't know who she was, where she came from, what she wanted, or why she appeared to possess Stark technology.  


That day had been the day his world started to fall apart. They had returned battered and beat, and tired as hell. But the tiredness had evaporated as soon as Tony had started working on figuring out who the witch was. His crazed desire to find the woman responsible for their latest beat down, had spurred both Clint and Steve into not slowing down as well. But as the two more burtish Avengers, Clint and he hadn't had much to do. Steve wanted to help, but with his vast lack of knowledge in all things technology, Steve had decided that he would hit the gym and not only train, but help get some of rage out. That was perhaps the worst choice, he had ever made.

He had stood outside the door, frozen as if back in ice. Listening to the voices on the other side exchanging angry words. He knew the voices, very well. One was Clint, who had, it would seem the same ideas of training as he had. He had not been shocked to hear Clint in the gym, it had been the other voice that had caused him to stop.

“Steve around?” she had asked.

“Oh, Mrs. Rogers, no, last I saw, Steve and Tony were in with Fury.” Clint had said after a rather loud clatter, giving Steve the idea that Julie had startled the assassin, it wasn’t many that could sneak up on Clint.

“Good,” she purred, her voice was low and seductive, a vibrato Steve only ever heard a few times, in the bedroom.

“Um, Mrs. Rogers, what are you...”

“Oh relax Clint, no one will ever know.” Steve wished the door had a window so that he could see what was happening, but perhaps it was better that he couldn't. The blood that ran through his veins was ice cold as he stood rooted to the spot, marveling at how fucked up his day was turning out to be.

“But I will, Steve is a very good friend of mine, I won’t hurt him like that.” A small smile spread across Steve's face, lightly melting some of the ice in his blood. Clint was a good man, he was lucky to call him a friend. But his smile faltered as he heard Julie's laugh; high, cold and completely humorless.

“Steve would not be hurt,” She croaked through her laughter. This confused Steve though, he did not understand why she would think he would not be hurt to find out that his wife and friend were sleeping together, because Steve was sure that was what she was after Clint for.

“He's too busy staring at Tony's ass and pretending he doesn't love a man, to be bother by my little indiscretions.” Steve's brow furrowed at his wife's words, he did love Tony, very much, but not the way she was implying, and he'd never even noticed Tony's ass. Well, ok, maybe that was a lie, but he hadn’t thought anyone had noticed.

“Why are you just now bothered by this?” Clint asked, “You and Steve have been married for almost a year, Tony and Steve have been ignoring their attraction for one another since long before you and he married. Nothing in that time has changed between him and Tony, and I doubt it ever will.” Clint finished.

“So you know that Tony and Steve have feelings for each other?”

“We all know Mrs. Rogers, well all except Steve and Tony. They do seem to be rather oblivious to each others feelings. But we also know how much Steve loves you.”

“Loved.” Steve said as he stepped out from behind the door. Clint looked happy to see him. Truth be told Hawkeye probably knew he was there the whole time. Julie had at least enough sense to look somewhat ashamed.

“Steve!” She gasped, feigning innocence with the bat of her lashes, a move that had worked on him in the past.

“We are done Julie,” He said, dismissing her and walking over to the punching bags. Turning his back on the small woman he laid into the offending sand filled bag. He was trying not to lose his temper, but it wasn't working. Steve Rogers was angry, and he had every right to be. His wife had tried to cheat on him, with someone he had considered a very good friend. Steve hadn’t thought anything was wrong with his marriage. 

They talked all the time, they went on dates when they could, they both had very time consuming jobs after all. SHIELD kept Steve busy at all hours of the day and night when a threat to the planet was impending. Julie was an engineer at Stark Enterprise working on Iron Man. Tony had been trying to develop a stronger metal, one that could withstand the beating he so frequently got. Julie had been the head engineer which meant keeping hours like Tony, in the hopes of actually keeping up with the genius. Long nights and early mornings were normal in the Rogers house. But he had thought they made the best of it. Date nights when they had the time, lunch dates when they were on the helicarrier together and text messages and phone calls when physical contact couldn’t be achieved. It had taken Steve a bit to grasp the concept of cell phones but with the help of Tony, he had learned and had been able to stay in contact with Julie whenever he wanted. He had loved texting because not only was his wife at his fingertips but so was anyone else he needed or wanted to communicate with.

Their sex life wasn’t lacking either, at least he didn’t think it was. He could be wrong about that, he had after all, never been very good at reading women.

“Steve, wait,” Julie said, reaching out for him. 

“No, Julie. You and me, It’s over.” Steve ground out, turning to look at her. Angry blue eyes met fiery green.

Something with in her face flashed for just a second before her face turned cold. Her bright red hair gave the illusion that her head was on fire. The look of cold determination worried Steve, but he was too angry to care. He had just gotten his ass kicked, by an unknown enemy, and found out his wife was trying to cheat. who knew, perhaps she had cheated on him before.

“You’ll pay for this Steven Rogers.” She swore as she stormed out of the gym. The door swinging and slamming. A heavy silence, punctuated only by the sound of fists smashing into fabric lingered in the air.

“Damn Steve, I’m sorry.” Clint said as he gathered his things and left. Leaving Steve to beat out his anger and dwell on his thoughts.

That had been one month ago, life had gone down hill from there.


	2. Off Kilter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, i had an unexpected house guest. *sigh* she's gone now. ON WITH THE STORY!

Off Kilter

 

From drawing up divorce papers and dealing with the prenup, that Tony had smartly convinced Steve to get, to dealing with the press and the disappearance of his best friend, Steve’s life was in an upheaval. 

Julie had made good, at least partially on her threat and had, within hours of Steve’s dismissal of her, ran to the press. Allegations of the nature of Steve’s and Tony’s relationship splashed across the tabloids the next day. The news casters keep a running commentary on images of the best friends together. Talking about everything from whether Tony or Steve were Top...Steve could only guess what that meant, to talk of how Captain America and Iron being gay could help the acceptance of the LGBT movement, not just in America but all around the world. Apparently the world thought they would be the perfect poster boys. 

There had been allegations of abuse as well but thankfully those had been laughed off as totally and completely ridiculous. Steve had unfortunately found himself in a jail cell before they had cleared it up, and his mug shot was particularly depressing. He’d only been behind bars for a few hours before Fury had fixed the unfortunate issue, as he had so delicately put it. 

Steve had told Tony about the incident in the gym between him, Clint and Julie. Tony had been furious that Julie had tried to cheat and use Clint to do it. Steve may have omitted the part where Julie and Clint both agreed that Steve and Tony had feelings for eachother. That was not a conversation he had been willing to have with Tony. In all honesty, he never planned on having that conversation, EVER, with anyone, especially with Tony. He could admit that he may have feelings that were less than pure for his best friend, to himself, in private, but he would never do it out loud to anyone.

But the Tabloids had gotten ahold of the Idea, he had seen how freaked out Tony was, and it wasn’t the normal Tony Stark freak out, there was something deeper to it. Something that Steve hadn’t expected to see in his eyes. Steve had seen hope on Tony’s face when he had seen the tabloid. It gave Steve pause, to say the least. Maybe Clint had been right about everyone knowing about their feelings, everyone but them. He still wasn’t ready to delve into the idea of him and Tony being more than best friends. It was a scary new territory that a boy born in the 20s had learned was not something normal people dealt with.

He had pushed his feelings for the dark haired man aside, he had other things to worry about. He had moved out of the house he and Julie shared and had moved back into his room in Stark Tower. Tony had kept it exactly the way Steve had left it. Somehow, Steve felt Tony had known that his relationship with Julie wouldn’t work. 

The days wore on as they tried, unsuccessfully to find the Iron Witch, who had vanished, without a trace. They had been scrambling to figure the new villain out, but Steve’s head had not been in it. His emotional upheaval had put him in a fog. He had the backing of his team of course. Clint and Tony were around all the time. He was rarely on his own. He enjoyed the company, it had allowed him to keep his mind off of the impending doom he was facing with his life.   
Even Bruce and Natasha had managed to get in contact with him after hearing what had happened. Bruce had been sympathetic and a good ear for Steve to rant at. Natasha was...PISSED! Clint and her had been seeing each other for a while, and the idea of someone coming on to him had sent her into a rage. The fact that it had been Steve’s wife, had slipped her mind as she flew off the handle over the phone. Steve had pulled the phone away from his ear and had still been able to hear Nat shout all the nasty horrible things she was going to do to the “bitch”. 

Not normally one for violence, Steve had found it hard to scold Natasha for her language and her threats. Truth was, at that point, Steve would have loved to help her do some of the things she threatened. If it weren’t for the fact that he would NEVER raise his hand to a woman, especially in anger, he probably would have let Nat go after Julie. Instead he had listened to her rant and rave and wear herself out. When she had calmed down enough, she had apologised to Steve for everything he was going through. Not that she had anything to be sorry about but he was grateful for her support anyway. 

The hits to Steve just kept coming though. Everywhere he looked, more tabloid rumors about his sexuality popped up. They had gone so far as to question whether he and director Fury... Steve shivered at the thought. Tony had about come unglued when he had see that headline. The headline about Steve and Clint was more believable then Steve and Fury. At least Clint was good looking. 

Everything had finally started to get to the Cap, it was the reason he had lost Tony. The day the tabloid about him and Fury had come out, had been the day the Witch had finally come out of hiding. 

it had been an ambush, they had gone out with a light team, just Natasha who had just come back from some mission, Steve and Tony. They had been doing a recon mission on the witch and her last known playground, when Nat had suddenly found herself tied up, hanging upside down from a free. The tree branch shook violently and the limb seemed to come to life. Steve had though he had imagined it. Natasha had inadvertently triggered a trap, Without Hawkeye, Natasha’s eyes were not nearly as sharp. Both she and Steve had missed the trip wire. Tony had been in there air, but the thick growth of branches and verge had made it difficult for him to see their position on the ground. 

He had been distracted trying to get Natasha down when the Witch had appeared. Tony had not seen her coming, so Steve reasoned that she had been waiting there the whole time they were scouring the woods. They had been there for maybe an hour before Nat had triggered the trap. The recon had recovered nothing, and they had been considering wrapping it up. 

The witch had come at Steve while he was trying to get Nat down. Instead he had had to leave Natasha to get herself down. Steve stood and threw his shield, expecting it to come back to him after hitting his target, instead, the witch caught it and threw it back at him. Steve had not expected the force at which the shield would hit him, he had not actually gotten close enough to the witch in their last battle. Before he had seen it coming the shield had hit him in the midsection, knocking the wind out of him. He was slammed into the tree Natasha was hanging from. Every time she tried to swing herself up to grab the branch, the tree limb would lurch up and shake violently, preventing her from getting any leverage. Her knife was in her boot, that she couldn’t reach. 

He didn’t remember much after that, he could feel a few broken ribs, but had known they would heal fast. He remembered Tony landing next to him, a worried expression on his unmasked face. His mask was off, He had let his guard down, because he was worried about his friend., Steve told himself. Steve was winded and in pain. He had found himself having trouble staying awake, the pain in his body was taking over. Natasha was still hanging upside down, struggling. 

Steve’s vision started to fade but he could hear Tony talking and tried to stay focused on the smooth velvety voice. He opened his eyes, but his voice failed him. He had seen it coming but was unable to warn the brunett. His eyes went wide as he watched the web of green light hit Tony. Tony’s whole body convulsed as the green light swallowed him, his face contorted in pain, he let out a ear piercing, agonizing scream, one that would haunt Steve for the rest of his life. The witch laughed, and the world went blank. 

When he woke up, he was laying on a hospital bed, Natasha sitting next to him, her head in her hand. It was such a human position for the stone cold killer that it had knocked Steve off kilter. He had remained silent, just watching Natasha. 

“Where’s Tony?” He said, wincing as the movement of his chest made his broken ribs hurt.

Natasha looked up at him, a pained expression on her face. Steve knew, then that the witch had him. 

A knock on the door pulled Steve from his thoughts

“Cap, We gotta get moving.” Clint’s voice came from the other side of the door. He had stepped up to the role of leader while Steve was unable to do it. And Steve was definitely unable to be leader right now.

Opening the door, he fixed his best “Captain America” look to his face, even if he didn't feel like it.   
“Lets do this.” He said, fixing his shield to his back and walking out of the room, Clint following close behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert witty comment* reviews and comments make me want to update faster...I'm just saying.


	3. In the Face of Loss, Comes Determination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The loss of part of the team is starting to take its toll on Steve.

In the Face of Loss, Comes Determination.

“On your left.” The voice in Steve’s ear shouted. He turned just in time to see a large tree limb swing out and connect with his midsection. The force of the blow sending him flying.

Grabbing his stomach, Steve’s breath is ragged and pained. All the blows to his midsection were starting to wear him down. His body hurt, his mind hurt, every fucking thing about him hurt, and it was starting to get to him. Steve could only take so much. The constant fighting, the pain of losing Tony and betrayal that he had suffered at the hands of the one person he thought loved him. Steve was feeling broken. He didn't think he was strong enough to handle everything that was coming at him. He could feel his strong exterior breaking. A super soldier he may be, but even he could only take so much. His mind, body and soul were being put through the ringer and his hard determination and brave spirit were beginning to fracture. 

Lost in thought, another tree limb catches him in the back, his body crashing into the ground, clumps of dirt mixed with twigs, leaves and moss, go flying through the air. 

The witch was controlling the trees, that much was clear. But for the life of Steve, he couldn’t figure out how. Steve couldn’t help but feel like he had been transported straight into the wizard of oz, the trees of the wicked forest coming to life at the behest of the witch. 

The Witch though, was nothing like Dorothy’s nemesis. Instead the Iron Witch was dressed so much like Tony in his Iron Man suit and yet she was as different as was possible to be. Where Tony’s suit was easy to destroy with hard blows in close combat, hers remained, perfect; impenetrable and scratch free. Her weapons, superior in everyway. Iron Man’s missiles and explosives, looked like children’s toys compared to the webs of electricity that the witch threw from her hands. The beams of light that dazed and confused foes from the reactor in her chest put the unibeam to shame.

The Iron Witch was as strong as Thor, more impenetrable than Iron Man and as determined and unwilling to back down from a fight as Captain America. She was cold and calculating like Black Widow, and could see what was coming before it happened like Hawkeye. She had bested all of them every time they went up against her and this angered Steve. He wasn’t used to being bested, by anyone. 

The first few fights hadn’t told him much about their opponent. They didn’t know what her end game was, they didn’t know what was fuling her anger or her desires. She had opened no dialogue with them to inform them of anything. 

Steve was sure the suit came from Stark, it had to. It was too close in design not to be. The only people that had access to the specs on the suit though had been Tony and his AI Jarvis. Tony had gone over Jarvis’s programming to make sure that no one had tampered with it, but could find nothing. 

However even if the basic design of the suit was from Stark, the tech was nothing any of them had seen, even Tony had been shocked by it. He wasn’t sure where the tech had come from. He didn’t know what the witch wanted or why, but he knew there was a reason for all of it. There was a reason that she had taken Tony. Steve knew it, but he didn’t have enough pieces to the puzzle to be able to put it together...Yet. 

The weaponry had confused Tony but the magic had gotten Steve. Tony could come up with all kinds of weapons to put in the suits, but he did not have to ability to make the forest come to life. 

The blow from the last tree limb had sent him about 100 yards away from the battle, which allowed him to survey the fight, out of harms way. Hawkeye was out of arrows, struggling on the ground to gain footing as the trees moved around him. He had been dumped from his perch in a tree as it had come to life. Blood flowed from his nose and a cut on his cheek. 

Steve climbed out of the hole his body had created, spitting dirty from his mouth, and started forward, jogging to rejoin the fight, but before he could reach his destination the world slowed to an almost dead stop. He watched as a set of strong limbs wrapped around Natasha. The master assassin struggled against the bark, but Steve could see that it was useless. He watched as Natasha was forced through the trunk of the tree and then vanished. The sight he had witnessed refused to process, he could have sworn that the tree had, for lack of a better analogy just swallowed Natasha whole. As if they had achieved their goal, the trees became lifeless again. 

Hawkeye ran at the tree that had just taken Natasha, a knife in his hand, hacking at the bark, but it was useless, Natasha was gone and the Witch was laughing. A cold, high mirthless laugh. And then she was gone too. 

The sounds of a knife hitting a tree trunk was all that could be heard in the aftermath of the battle. They had now lost two of their team to the Iron Witch, they needed Banner and Thor. Contacting the demi God would not be easy, but he would find away. They had not seen the big guy in a year, not since before Steve’s wedding, believing he was busy being a god or dealing with Loki, they had left him alone. But that was about to change. 

They needed to figure out what the Witch was after. They needed to start getting a few steps ahead of her, instead of always five behind. Steve needed to understand the endgame, there had to be a reason this person was taking Avengers, and it wasn’t just to get them out of the way. Steve knew that much.

“We will get them back,” Clint said, a straggled pain in his voice, Steve knew that pain well. It was the pain of a loved one, lost.

“We will,” Steve said, placing a hand on Clint’s shoulder. Steve had known about the relationship between Clint and Natasha for a while, but the full extent of their relationship was not know. Perhaps there was more too it than just what people saw. 

He had heard Clint tell Julie that everyone knew that he and Tony had feelings for each other, which had been news to him, because until Tony had actually been taken, he’d never stopped to figure out how he truly felt about the genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. It had truly come as a shock to him that he felt anything other than friendly feelings toward the dark haired man. It hadn’t been until Tony was removed from his life that the acknowledgement of those feelings had been able to surface and then there was no denying how he felt. He had been hiding from the emotions for longer than he realized. The truth was, at some point in the two years that he had been a wake from the ice, he, Captain America had fallen in love with Tony Stark, a man like none other, but a man no less. 

Julie had stopped Steve from spending time with Tony after they had married, perhaps it had been because she had known about his feelings for the man all along, but he couldn’t be sure. It had been hard to do, but he had put distance between him and his friend, for her. He had thought, that was what you did in a relationship. Peggy was right, even after all these years, he still didn’t know anything about women.

The idea of being attracted to Tony, wasn’t all that foreign to him, he had been with men before. It gets lonely in the military, in war zones day in and day out. But he had never found a love for someone of the same sex, all he had ever found was a release when in desperate need.

Perhaps, he had known all along that his love for Tony was romantic love and not brotherly, Steve could understand his desire to ignore that base feeling. He was born after all, in the 1920s, loving someone of the same sex was not accepted and never talked about. It was something to be ashamed of, something that was cause for seclusion in a padded room. Electro shock and medications were used on people that exhibited homosexulatity. It was a disease, something to be feared and treated as contagious. He had learned long ago that people hid those feelings for fear of repercussions. 

When the news had broken about him possibly being homosexual or at the very least bisexual, the world had paused, but had not stopped. There had been gasps and a few shocked out cries, some rage from the heavily religious sect, but nothing bad had befallen him. 

It had taken two full years of friendship and 2 days of Tony missing, for Steve to realize that he had fallen in love with his best friend. Steve figured that Clint was coming to the same conclusions about Natasha. She had once told Loki that love was for children, but something told him that Clint, suddenly didn’t agree with that assessment. Steve knew his pain; the look on Clint’s face as he stood stock still staring at the tree that had somehow taken Natasha, the trunk littered with gashes from a knife he had wielded, he knew it all too well. Steve’s heart was breaking, not only for his loss but for Clint’s as well. 

Neither of their heads were in the game anymore, not with their loved ones torn from their grasp. Steve needed to call in the big guns. He need Bruce to take point on this, and he needed Thor. He couldn’t risk anyone getting killed because he and Clint didn’t have their emotions in check, but a plan was starting to form in his head.

“We need to get back to SHIELD, I’ve got a plan. But we need Dr. Banner and Thor.” Steve turned and started to walk away, Clint stayed where he was. 

Turning back to look at the broken man, Steve’s voice was strong and sure, “We’ll get them back, Hawkeye, I promise.” Hollow blues eyes met dusty ones. With a sharp nod, Clint fell in step with Steve. 

He would get Tony and Natasha back. He would kill the Witch, and he would, when it was all over, tell Tony how he felt. He had wasted too much time not admitting his feelings to continue on like nothing had changed. Not in the face of losing the only person he truly loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love hearing what you all have to say, please leave a comment and tell me what you think so far.


	4. We Will be Saved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to Tony and Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is un-beta'd, I'm in the market for one if you're of a mind, leave a comment and I'll be in touch. All mistakes are my own and a pray there are not too many. Let me know if there are.

We will Be Saved

 

The sound of metal slicing through the air at break neck speeds caught Tony’s attention, abandoning the tree that was trying to take his head off, he turned just in time to watch the red white and blue Vibranium shield catch an unaware Captain America in the chest. 

“Steve!” Tony shouted panic laced in his voice. Firing his thrusters, he pushed his wrecked suit into the air long enough to be at Steve’s side in a matter of seconds. 

“Steve, wake up buddy, you got to stay with me.” Steve’s eyes opened a fraction, allowing Tony to see slivers of dusty blue. Tony cracked a smile, hoping Steve wouldn’t notice the fear in his eyes. 

“Come on Cap, you got to stay awake.” Tony was talking to him, but he wasn’t paying attention to what was coming out of his mouth. He just needed Steve to stay awake, stay focused on his voice. Tony was in panic mode, Steve was a super soldier but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get hurt or worse. He was after all still mortal and could die. To say Tony was scared, would be a downright lie. Tony was fucking terrified that he would lose Steve for good. 

Steve’s eyes widened in panic, his mouth opened but nothing came out, Tony was unsure why Steve was scared but he figured it had to do with having just had his ribs crushed by vibranium. He of course had been wrong. The pain he felt as something hit him in the back was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Even through his suit, he could feel his nerves fray, electricity crackling along his skin, frying the circuits in the suit. Tony could hear himself scream, not a in the throes of awesome sex scream, oh no this was a blood curdling, nails on a chalkboard, head exploding in pain, kind of scream. The web of green light wrapped around him, the pain growing the closer the web go to his body, his skin felt like it was on fire, every follicle trying to melt off his body. Eventually the pain overtook him and Tony could remember nothing else.

**

The smell of earth, damp and hot filled his nose. He didn’t know how long he had been down there, a while he imagined. The lack of light, didn’t allow him to keep accurate time. It could have been a few weeks or a matter of days, perhaps longer, though he didn’t think his Captain would allow him to remain a prisoner of war for longer than that. He had somehow remained calm in his underground prison. Reminding himself that the man he loved was out there, no doubt looking for him, had allowed him to keep a level head and not freak out. He had been close the first day, the dark underground prison was too close to the cave he had been held captive in afghanistan. 

Steve wasn’t all that tech savy but he was smart. A hell of a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for. He kept up with Tony most days, as long as he’d had a chance to research the topic. He had the ability to remember what he read and Tony always took the time to help him understand and explore the new things around him. It had taken awhile for him to warm up to the idea of helping teach Steve new things, but it had been the only way they got to see each other after a while. His feelings for the big man had caused him many sleepless nights, he hated how he felt, but only because Steve didn’t return the feelings. It had been hard for him at first to lock his feelings away and let Steve have a happy life. It pained him to see Steve embrace his wife in a loving or tender manner, because he wanted to be the one in the embrace. But he loved Steve enough to hide his own feelings and let Steve be happy. He also found that he enjoyed teaching Steve. He enjoyed Steve’s desire to learn and his ability to pick up and comprehend even difficult things when given the proper lessons. 

Tony had no doubt that Steve, and to a lesser extent, the other avengers were looking for him. He had no problem believing that he would be saved and that it would his Star Spangled man with a plan, that would lead the rescue mission. It was because of that certainty that Tony had been able to ignore the tightening in his chest, and refused to allow the all encompassing fear to take over. 

The cave that he called home was not unlike the one in Afghanistan mostly because it was underground and yet it was very different. It was earthy and dirty, tree roots popped out from the top, the dark earth covered floor to ceiling. There was hardly any rock, it was all sediment, dirt, sand, and twigs. the flow of water could be heard but from where Tony could only guess, probably he suspected, from somewhere he hope was an exit. He wasn’t even sure he should call what he was in a cave. It wasn’t used for mining, or anything from what he could tell. It didn’t look like it could be used for anything really and he wondered if the Witch, with all her powers, had created it. He knew she could control the trees and plant life. He had been there long enough to know that much.

The Iron Witch, as far as captors go, honestly wasn’t that bad. He had suffered much worse at the hands of The Ten Rings. She had been cold and calculating during the fight and had knocked him unconscious with her green web of pain, but she never bothered him, he hadn’t even seen her since his arrival. She had provided food and water for him 3 times a day and that was that. 

She had minions made of shrubbery keep watch on him. That had been a startlingly hilarious turn about, he had not been expecting. The first time a small shrub had walked up to him with a plate of food for him, Tony had laughed. The kind of laugh that bent him over, gasping for air while tears streamed down his face. He had not expected to find any comedy in his situation but that little leafy green puff ball had been his undoing. He couldn’t keep a straight face. He had tried, oh man had he tried, but really, a walking bush handing him a plate of food had been more than he could handle. 

The bush however, had not thought his outburst to be all that funny and had whipped him with a branch across the back of the hand as he reached for the food. It had hurt, pretty fucking bad in all honesty, but it had not curbed his fit of hysteria. 

Tony sat in the center of a blue dome, not daring to touch the electric blue webbing. He had done that once, ONLY ONCE, his very first day as a captive. It had admittedly not been one of his brighter moves. For some reason the warning bells had not gone off inside his genius mind as he reached out to touch a slightly pulsating blue web of electricity. He wanted to blame it on his weakened state of mind. Blame it on the fact that he had been worried about Steve, and to some extent, he supposed, it was a totally plausible explanation, but really Tony knew that had nothing to do with it. He just simply wasn’t thinking. Touching the light had sent a shock wave through his body, it felt like he had been hooked to a flagpole and then had Thor hit it will all his lightening power. His Iron Man suit had been removed from his body so he had felt the entire electrifying ride.

The volts that passed through his hand from the web had left a burn mark, he had been unable to release his grip on the beam and had convulsed for what felt like hours, though, he really had no way of knowing how long it had been. When finally he had been released from the electrifying event, he had twitched and convulsed into a sweaty ball of Tony gel. He had not been happy when woke up. His body was shaky and beaten and he never ever wanted to feel that again, so the genius that he was, had given a wide berth to the cage walls. 

Because of the light cast by the blue dome, Tony had been able to at least study his surroundings. He had found it plain, boring and rather uninteresting. There were two other domes, both empty of captures, and he wondered idly who they were meant for. He had hope that the reason that were empty was because who ever they had been intended for was thwarting the Witch. Or perhaps the Avengers had learned more about their foe and had been able to anticipate her moves. Regardless, he couldn’t make out an exit. He truly had no way of knowing how he had gotten into the cave, thus he had no way of knowing how to get out. The sound of water had given him hope but without a way out, that hope was dependant solely on his Captain.

In all the time that Tony had spent in the witches captivity, he hardly knew anything about her. For a super villain she was oddly silent. It had annoyed and confused him. It bothered him that she held her true purpose so close to the vest. He was so used to villains monologuing and fucking things up because they got too cocky. She either wasn’t ready to show her hand, which meant more shit was to come, or she had learned from all the others what not to do. With the two empty cages and stony silence, something told him she wasn’t ready to make her finally play because she didn’t have everything lined up yet. The foreboding feeling in Tony’s chest was starting to take hold.

A loud clatter and a crash, rousted Tony from his musing, looking at what was making the loud noises, Tony froze in shock. The ground above one of the holding cells had opened up, a small figure fell with a loud thump to the ground. He knew who it was immediately. 

“HEY!” she shouted, “Let me out of here.” Her hand reached for the webbing.

“Natasha DON’T!” Tony shouted a second too late. 

Her screams ripped through the cave, bouncing off the walls and back at each other. Tony covered his ears, trying to block out the pain and anguish coming from his friend.

The dome glowed red for a second and Natasha’s screams stopped. Her hand released its grip on the webbing and she fell back, a puff of dirt raising from where her body landed. Tony watched, helpless as Natasha flopped around on the ground, like a fish out of water, as tremor after tremor ran through her. 

The room stayed still and silent for a long time after that. Natasha had fallen unconscious, not that Tony had been shocked. He had watched her, made sure that she was ok, even if he had no ability to do anything even if she wasn’t. It made him feel better knowing that he had least had to ability to keep an eye on her. 

It worried him that she had been captured. The woman was a highly trained assassin, ex russian, stone cold killer. It could not have been easy to take her, he had seen her get out of many tough spots, her arrival broke down a little bit of his hope. But he was not willing to let it completely slip away, Steve was still out there and he was looking for Tony. Tony knew that much.

A small groan from the now occupied second cage, alerted Tony to Natasha waking up. He knew only too well how she felt. Tony felt bad for the feisty assassin.

“Hey Tasha,” he said. “If you’re here to rescue me, I’m afraid you’ve failed.” He tried to sound sarcastic, but the clipped tone fell short.

“Stark?” Natasha questioned, looking around, still unable to get her bearings. “Is that you? Where are we? Why are we here?” 

“You, my dear Black Widow, are no where of importance. You are a pawn in my game and hold no real value to me. Soon enough everything will be in place, and you will watch as the world falls. As the blond you all love so much falls to his knees and begs for mercy and forgiveness. For too long have I stood in the shadows and watched as the lives of you pathetic humans progressed while mine withered. For too long have I been ignored. Well not any more!” her voice was cold and smooth, and Tony knew her voice. He knew who had them, and based on the look Natasha was giving him, she knew too. Yet their Iron Witch was still not seen. And even though he knew who had them, it really meant nothing because that didn’t explain the weaponry and the magic she had. There was more to the small town girl he had hired and taken under his wing, he didn’t have the ability to make tech that controlled living things. 

Two of the three cells now held people. He didn’t know who that third cell was planned for and he wasn’t too keen on finding out. He feared for Steve now, more so than himself. He needed to figure out how to get out, Steve’s safety was above everything, the most important thing now. The Iron Witch was after him, she had to be, but he didn’t understand why. As far as he knew, he had done nothing to her. 

The genius’s brain was finally starting to piece things together. The fact that the webbing had changed colors meant something to Tony. The red had stopped the electricity flow and allowed Natasha to release her grip. This meant that touching the red was ok. When the plants and other carbon based lifeforms controlled by the Witch had handed him food and other necessities, the webbing had remained blue, yet they had not suffered the same fate as Natasha and him. Perhaps it had to do with warmth, or maybe it was keyed to the human signature, he wasn’t sure. Either way, the key to getting out of the cell lay in the plants. 

Natasha had been dropped through the top of the web, but the color had remained the same, nothing about the web had changed that he could visibly see, nor had it caused her any discomfort as she passed through it.   
Fascinated by his discovery Tony stood on weak shaky legs, stretching to his full height. With one hand held out, he jumped, grabbing on to the top of his confines, one of his hands found a dead spot in the webbing. Unfortunately his other hand was not so lucky. His shouts filled the cave as his body jerked of its own accord. After a few minutes of agony the web glowed red and he was able to let go. 

He landed breathlessly on his knees in the dirt, his body hurt, his mind was tired and he was worried about Steve, but Tony was starting form a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you too all who have commented, bookmarked or given this story kudos, you all make me so happy.
> 
> Please tell me what you thought of this chapter, I'm not sure I really liked it.


	5. Inside her mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a small but informative glance inside the mind of a villain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank Windeetree for being my beta, she was kind enough to offer her services.

Ch 5. Inside her mind 

Her plan was coming together perfectly. Her tree minions were strategically placed, all over the world. Her crows, ready to be dispatched at her command. All she needed was one more person, and patience. She would take over the world and they would once again know her name and all would fall to their knees before her. The world would worship her again, she would command it, or there would be death. 

The only thing that stood in her way was the Avengers, but soon enough, they too would be no more. She had, truth be told, not expected them to be so difficult to get rid of and because of that, they were taking longer to dispose of.

She had known the big guy was going to be the hardest and had thus made sure he wasn’t around for her fights. She had been thankful that her intel had always been correct. 

The Man of Iron had been the easiest to get to. Such a soft spot he had for his Captain.   
Foolish man. 

The Asgardian was always gone as well. She hadn’t even seen him for the length of time she had been on earth. He was the final piece of the puzzle; she would not reveal herself again until till he was there. Her trap for him had already been set in motion. He would arrive soon. She was giddy with excitement to see the demi god. She wanted to watch the pain in his eyes, to see him fall to his knees before her. 

Black widow, she had expected to be the easiest to take. She had expected the metal man to be her first capture, but the fight for the widow had taken longer than she had anticipated. It had messed with her plan slightly, for the Captain had fought hard to find his love. When she had taken Tony Stark, she had not known the extent of the man’s love. But not for nothing was she the Goddess of life and death. She could see their life cycles linked, lovers in an age old battle. Denial, sorrow, pain, acceptance and love would come to them if she let it. Too bad for Captain America, his man of metal would die before their cycle completed. She would make sure of that. 

And Steve, the mighty Captain America, she would watch him fall. Watch as he broke beneath her hands. She would lay waste to all that he found precious in this world and she would watch as his hopes and joys burned. 

She did not take well to being scorned. She had been scorned by the men of this world and by others. When she finished with earth, she would extract her revenge on other worlds. 

“Let the final stage BEGIN!” She said to no one in particular. The final stage would bring Thor to this world. His rage would be swift and clear. But he would have no idea who was running the show and his wrath would be misplaced. They would search for the Iron Witch as she had called herself, but they would not find what they were looking for. Instead they would find a bucket of bolt, green and chrome; twisted metal. A mangled body of an ordinary girl, no more special than   
her name, she would be of no consequence to the Witch, but she her death would enrage the Avengers. 

She looked forward to that day. The day when she could stop hiding, and show the world that she was no mere mortal. She was a Goddess who demanded the respect of those around her. 

She would control the very ground the people of earth walked on. They would worship her, fall at her feet, beg her for mercy, she would again have what was due to her. 

She would rage upon Thor for everything he had done. She would watch him die, by her hands. The Hawk too, his death would be painful and slow. But Steve’s death would be the one she waited for. She would cherish the feel of his blood on her hands, the feel of his final breath, as his chest stilled. Dusty blue eyes, going dim as his life force left him. It was an image that made her yearn for male companionship.


	6. There is Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Clint are struggling with the loss of their team mates and loved ones, but Bruce Banner brings them new hope. Thor however has still not come to the aid of his comrades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not entirely sure people like this story but thats ok, because I'm going to keep writing it. When this story is done I will be continuing the story line in the 30 day otp challenge. There will be no smut in this story but there will be in the OTP. This is the set up for my boys relationship. 
> 
> i want to thank my beta windeetree again for being awesome.

Ch 6 There is Hope by Jaspers Dark Angel

Steve sat at a large table, eyes blank, staring at nothing, nursing a cup of coffee.  
The remaining Avengers had finally found where Banner was hiding; convincing him to come back with them in the hopes of finishing whatever the Witch had planned. The Witch, however, had other ideas. 

She had remained silent since the abduction of Natasha. A dark cloud had fallen over the remaining Avengers in the wake of losing two of their number. It had been especially hard to watch as Clint came undone. The normally unflappable assassin had been a terror, during training, in the field; in hand to hand combat with anyone stupid enough to tempt fate could be deadly. After the fifth person had been hospitalized with a broken bone, Steve had taken to being Clint’s sparring partner. It helped keep him grounded. The pain that went with a good fight, helped relax his stressed and worried mind, but it only helped for a little while. Clint refused to slow down, when he wasn’t sparring with Steve, he was on the range, practicing with the new bow Tony had created and learning its ins and outs. It had yet to be tested in the field but Clint wanted it ready for the final fight. They just didn’t know when that would be. 

They hadn’t gotten Thor yet, the trial of Loki was wrapping up, it had taken two years to bring full Asgardian justice to Loki for the crimes he had committed, and there had apparently been many more crimes than what was perpetrated on earth. Plus something was happening with Odin; Steve didn’t pretend to understand the Demi-God's plight. There was just too much going on in his mind to worry about yet another disaster in the already fraying lives of his friends. The stress of everything had finally got to him. 

The charges of the domestic abuse had been thankfully dropped and with a little persuasion from SHIELD Julie had signed the divorce papers with relatively no problem. He was once again a free man, and yet he felt trapped, locked away inside his head. Fear for Tony’s safety, doubt in his ability to stop whatever plans the Witch had and worry that he wouldn’t be able to get to Tony in time, all circled around in the blond's head. 

He sadly had not had much time to dwell on his emotions. Or his life being made a living hell by his now ex-wife. With Tony out of the picture; she was the temporary liaison for the company, having taken over the position when Pepper had gone on maternity leave. He hated having to see her all the time. Divorced he found that he saw her much more clearly than he did before. He hated it. Despite the way everything had happened, he really had loved her, in a way, he still did. She had been the first person to give him the time of day and not expect him to be a superhero. She had taken his old fashioned behavior in stride, and had accepted him for who and what he was. She had loved him as Steve Rogers first, not as Captain America or so he had thought. It had been nice to feel that love, to know that he mattered to someone. 

He had grown up not thinking much of himself. Skinny and sickly, he had been kicked around and stepped on by anyone who felt like it. He had always been ready to fight back when he needed to, never willing to back down, but it was nice when he didn’t have to worry about fights, or about a woman laughing at him when he asked them out. 

Julie, never laughed at him, never acted like the mere thought of him disgusted her. It had felt nice to be desired. He had never acted on his feelings for Tony, of course he hadn’t, he hadn’t even realized they existed. He also didn’t think he had ever given her a reason to think he didn’t love her. 

It had been two weeks since Natasha’s capture and three weeks since Tony was taken. Steve’s nerves were on edge and every day since the last fight, Julie had found a way to get to him. Though, he had to admit, it wasn’t that hard. Everything set him off. His calm facade had started to slip and he’d found himself losing control of his anger more than he had control of it. More punching bags had been broken, even the extra reinforced ones Tony had created had been decimated, leaving nothing but grains of sand on the floor and tattered deflated fabric bags, in the wake of Steve’s wrath. 

Nothing was going right for him and he was starting to believe he wasn’t capable of getting Tony and Natasha back. He could feel the darkness setting on his thoughts, but had no way of getting rid of them. 

The loss of Tony and the realization that he may never get him back, took him back to the train all those years ago and the memory of losing Bucky. Sadness hung over him like a perpetual dark cloud. 

“Hey,” an unsure voice said, pulling Steve from his thoughts. Steve looked up into the tired soft eyes of Dr. Banner. The doc looked scruffy; unkempt and tired. His hair was longer and had turned greyer in the few years that Steve had known him. Steve liked Bruce a lot. He was a good man, kind and patient, even with Steve and his lack of tech knowledge. Where others would get frustrated, annoyed and give up, Bruce was understanding, caring and helpful. 

Tony tried to help him understand tech, but he was one that got frustrated easy. Truth be told, Steve enjoyed frustrating Tony. He loved to watch the unflappable Tony Stark lose his cool. Half the time Steve knew what Tony was talking about, having asked Bruce beforehand. Those were the times that he would sit back and smile while Tony worked himself into a snit, and just before Tony would fully explode, Steve would laugh and walk away. The other half of the time, he genuinely didn’t understand but he would still laugh. 

“Hey,” he said, abandoning his thoughts about Tony, they just depressed him. 

“I think I may have found something.” Steve jumped up from his chair, abandoning his now stone cold cup of coffee. 

“What? How? Where?” His mind was going a mile a minute, if Banner had found something, no matter how small; they needed to follow it up. They were out of the board room and on their way to Bruce’s lab in seconds. 

“Well, it’s not for sure anything, but after Natasha was taken, I went over the tree both you and Clint had said had come to life and swallowed her up,” His lips twitched in a faintly amused smile. With everything that Bruce had seen, he was still hard pressed to believe a yue tree could suddenly come to life and eat people. Steve had to admit, he wouldn’t have believed it either, had he not seen it with his own eyes. 

“I noticed some very low levels of gamma rays coming of the tree, it wouldn’t have even meant anything to me were the waves not almost identical to the Tesseract.” Steve’s stomach flip flopped and he stopped in his tracks. 

“Are you saying, Loki...” Steve started, but was cut off as Bruce started walking again. 

“No, not Loki, or even the Tesseract, but I’m thinking it’s something along those lines. Maybe even another Asgardian with a grudge?” Steve supposed it was possible but goodness what could the people of earth possibly have done to the Asgardians to cause so much hate. 

“Yeah, but why?” Steve asked unable to keep his train of thought fully to himself. “Thor isn’t here, hasn't been since before my wedding. And other than him and Loki, we don’t know any other Asgardians, do we?” 

“Well, they don’t blend in too well, that’s for sure, so I’m sure we’d know if we had another Demigod living among us.” Steve felt Bruce has a point, Thor while very intelligent knew even less about the modern world than Steve, and Loki hadn’t done too good a job at blending in either. Though had he wanted to, Steve was sure he would have been able to. 

Still, another Asgardian on earth, when Thor wasn’t even around. It just didn’t track. Though, Dr. Banner could be right about it being something like the Tesseract. The Iron Witch was much stronger and more advanced in every way then iron man. Tony hadn’t known where to or how to create anything the Witch was capable of doing. 

As they entered Bruce’s lab, Steve couldn’t help but begin to think the Witch wasn’t actually from Stark Industries, hell he doubted she was from earth. But what confused him more, was that she had gone to such great lengths to make everyone believe that the Iron Witch was part of Stark. But if she wasn’t, why then had she taken Tony? 

“Umm...” Bruce said, clearing his throat. Steve had gotten lost in his thoughts again. He had found it was happening more and more with Tony gone. He couldn’t help it; the thoughts that swirled around in his head were on a constant repeat. Every so often they would pop back up and he’d abandon those around him. The worst was when his feelings for Tony got tripped. Someone would say or do something that would remind him of Tony and his budding feelings for his playboy best friend and it would send him off into a silent tirade within his own head. 

“Sorry, Dr. Banner, what were you saying?” Steve said, a slight blush tingeing his cheeks.

“Just that, I calibrated the spectrometers to pick up the specific gamma waves and got a hit.” Steve’s mind froze. 

“Are you saying...” 

“I may know where they are.”


	7. I want it all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look into Tony's mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to windeetree for beta'ing this chapter and getting it back to me so fast. You are amazing.

Ch7 I want it all

“Let me GO!” The young woman yelled. Tony didn’t know anything about the small woman other than she occupied the third and final cell. She didn’t seem to be of much consequence to him, but her small, slightly broken frame would suggest that she had put of a fight when she was captured. She had a black eye forming and she had a split lip, there also looked to be shadowing around her neck as if someone had choked her, but in the glow of the cell Tony couldn’t be sure. 

She was short from what he could gather, with shoulder length brown hair. Her face was tear streaked and tired. She looked scared. Wild eyes darted around the underground cavern they resided in. Tony surmised that she was at least somewhat intelligent, of the three of them, she was the only one not stupid enough to touch the webs.

“Stop yelling, no one can hear you.” Natasha ground out. The spy had grown increasingly agitated in her captivity. She had a look about her, like an animal in captivity that had known freedom. She was feral and raw and downright scary. 

“Leave her alone Romanov, she’s new here.” Tony’s voice was sympathetic but firm as he sat as close to the webbing as he could, digging in the dirt. 

Natasha turned to him, leveling him with a glare that said only too plainly that if he didn’t shut up she was going to tear his arms off and beat him with them when they got out. That was, IF they got out. Tony wasn’t so sure it was going to happen. His plan to get out wasn’t going as well as it could have been. 

Though she looked murderous, Natasha had left the poor frightened girl alone. And thankfully the scared girl had silenced herself. The silence enveloped Tony, he was tired and just wanted to sleep. He abandoned his digging and curled up on the softest bit of floor he could. 

He had found the proverbial chink in the armour but had not been able to get around it. There was only one spot on the entire force field that was not electrifying when touched. The top was removable, and just big enough for a body to get through, however, Tony hadn’t been able to figure out how to climb through it without touching the rest of the webbing. Nor had he figured out how to get now two smaller women through the hole in their cells. He didn’t fancy his insides being cooked. 

So much was at stake if he didn’t get them out. He needed to succeed, which was why he had been digging in the dirt. He hoped the webbing didn’t go down too deep, maybe he could dig everyone out. It pained him to admit he was lost and unsure of himself and his plans. Tony always had ideas, and his ideas were always good. Just not this time. 

If he weren’t in so much danger, Steve would have loved to have seen Tony lost like he was. It always gave the super soldier some sick pleasure to see Tony falter. He loved to see Tony admit he was human. Tony hated showing his shortcomings, though there weren’t many; Steve somehow always managed to find them. But it was kind of tit for tat on that because Tony loved seeing Steve not be the perfect soldier. Steve had once told him he had not been given the serum to be the perfect soldier. He had been given the serum because he was a good man, and a good man could become better with the serum. Tony had had no words for that, but he had been right. Steve Rogers was a good man. Tony loved him more than he had ever loved anything in his whole life. 

He missed Steve. Tony was a big man, he could admit that he missed his best friend and consequently the guy who he was also madly in love with. Steve’s marriage had been hard on Tony. He had tried to do what he always did, in the face of something unfavorable. He drank, A LOT. Like into an early grave a lot, and if the alcohol wasn’t going to kill him the countless questionable bed partners he had, would. He was always safe, but that didn’t always mean the people he brought home in his drunken stupor weren’t somehow bat shit crazy and waiting to murder him for his money, in his sleep. The thought had occurred to him a few times but it had never really taken hold of him as something he should worry about. The drinking and random fucking had worked to keep his mind off Steve and his “wife” for the most part. 

The tabloids had caught a few of his escapades on camera though; those had been fun stories to read. “Playboy Tony Stark experiments with guys!” with a picture of him kissing a very nice looking blonde. It had really been the first time he’d experimented with guys more than just a kiss or a hand job. 

It had been so different when compared to the soft smooth curves of a woman. He had found he enjoyed the hard planes of taut muscle under his fingers. Liked the feeling of being filled and taken against a wall. He just wished it had been Steve filling him and not some random person he didn’t know and honestly had no desire to know. Those were the nights he drank the most. The nights that would end in tears or Pepper being called or on a few occasions Steve coming to Tony’s rescue. 

Steve was always coming to Tony’s rescue, even when he was little. It had been his love of Captain America that had gotten him through the hard times. He had pretended so many times as a child that Captain America would burst through his bedroom door, knock out his dear old dad and take him away to some better life. It had been enough to push him through some really bad memories. The thought of Captain America had even stopped him from taking his own life a few times.

It had been surreal to actually meet the real live Captain America. Though he hardly ever thought of him as Captain America now, he was just Steve. The man he had fallen in love with. He hadn’t fallen for the super hero; he fell for the good man. The man that would take Tony’s off handed comments and toss them back at him without missing a beat. He had fallen for the man that would put his life on the line to save any one of the Avengers. He had fallen for the man that would disobey a direct order, if it meant keeping his integrity. 

Steve was a good man before he was a good soldier, he never left a man down, never gave Tony hell for being Tony. But he always made sure to keep an eye on him, just in case Tony was getting into the self destructive behaviors.

When Steve had married what’s her name, the only thing that had changed had been Steve’s ability to keep Tony from self destructing and how often he saw his best friend. The rest of his personality traits had remained intact and as strong as ever. 

The revolving door of bed partners had put a bit of a strain on his and Steve’s friendship, Tony had not been so far down the path of destruction not to see the pinched, saddened looks Steve would give him, when he thought Tony wasn’t paying attention. Deep down Tony liked to believe it was jealousy but he knew better. He knew it was Steve’s old fashioned values warring with Tony’s lack of moral code that surfaced when he drank. 

A particularly bad night with a rent boy had stopped Tony in his self destructive tracks. It had caused the Avengers to assemble, oh yeah, it had been that bad. Try explaining to Director Fury and Coulson that the guy you had paid to fuck had drugged you and stolen the newest of the self contained Iron Man suits, and gone on a rampage terrorizing the city while you slept off a cocktail of roofies and scotch. That had ended in a big fucking fight between him and Steve. He had not only decided to try out celibacy but also decided that prohibition had been a sound and logical idea. He had thus gotten rid of all mind altering substances in his tower. 

It hadn’t been until all the shit with Julie had gone down that Tony had found a small sliver of hope again. The news of his and Steve’s “relationship” had been plastered all over the tabloids and yeah, combining his sudden desire to be celibate with his sudden interest in the same sex, the tabloids had latched onto it like a baby sucking a tit. Tony had to admit, his behavior had made the story sound plausible. The news of his and Steve’s relationship had shocked him though. See if he and Steve were in a relationship, it was definitely news he would want to know about. 

He hated seeing the media talk about the relationship as if it were real when it was anything but. It was a fantasy; one that Tony fervently wished could come true but never in a million lifetimes believed to be possible. Not a day went by since finding Steve did Tony not wish it was him sharing his bed and not the countless nameless, faceless people, but it wasn’t Steve and it never would be, so he accepted the only thing Steve had to offer, his friendship. A small spark of hope had flared when Julie had leaked the story, but it had died fast because a spiteful ex was spiteful.

Tony had been happy just to have whatever Steve could give him. He had counted his blessings and felt very grateful for even the small amount of the man’s affections he was offered. He was happy to know Steve and he could live with just being his friend. At least that was what he had to tell himself every time he started dreaming, but it had long since stopped making him feel better. Tony wanted all of Steve and it was slowly breaking his arc reactor to know that he would never get what he wanted.


	8. Identity Crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out. Chapter 9 got away from me but it now with the beta.

Chapter 8 identity revealed

A high pitched scream pulled Tony from a dream involving him and a very sexy, very naked Steve Rogers. He was more than a little annoyed, but after searching the dim room, he spotted the source of the commotion and his then annoyance turned into panic. The frail burnet, who’s name Tony had not bothered to learn, was out of her cage, kicking and screaming as the large tree root held her in place. She put up a good fight, but a small person against a giant tree trunk really stood no chance. 

“Silence,” The Iron Witch stood in front of the poor girl, the girl however, made even more noise than she had been. The sounds were painful and bounced oddly off the dirt walls. Tony had hoped it would be sound dampening but it wasn’t all that effective against the girl’s screams and pleas. The Witch raised her open hand to the girl’s face, Tony braced for the crack of the back of her hand colliding with the girls jaw, but it never came. Instead the Witch made a fist and then the room fell silent. Tony and Natasha both stared in shock as the girl continued to struggle. Her mouth open as if still screaming, but no sound was coming out. Her face was growing steadily redder, most likely from lack of oxygen. The Witch laughed as the girl passed out.

“Let her go, Red.” Tony said, standing as close to the cage as he dared. He glanced at Natasha, hoping she would back him up, but the stoic spy remained silent. 

“Stay out of this Stark,” the woman he thought he had known spat. Roots released the woman and she slumped to the floor. Her lifeless body didn’t remain on the ground long as the Witch was lifting her, the body floating creepily in the air, held only by a the command of a bony arm stretched out and pointed at the figure. 

“You aren’t so special are you? What could he possibly see in you?” She asked the limp body. 

Tony didn’t know who the he she was referring to was, and he now wished like hell he had asked the girl her name, so that maybe he would have an idea of who he was watching be tortured. The Witch however was the main source of Tony’s curiosity. She wasn’t in the suit and yet she clearly she had powers. Instead of the green and chrome armour he had gotten accustomed to seeing her adorn, she stood before him and a flowing green cloak with a wreath of flowers in her long wavy red hair, her back turned to him. He had thought he knew who she was but clearly he still knew very little. 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t understand mortal.” She turned to look at him. For the first time since his capture he was able to see her face. The woman that stood before him was one he had seen many times over the years. He had thought she was kind, soft spoken, friendly, intelligent and beautiful. But yet standing in front of him was a woman he did not truly know. She was fierce, angry, strong, her green eyes--so gentile normally-- blazed with fury and her red hair, bright from the light of the cages, made her look almost like she was on fire. This woman, standing in a long green cloak, white and gold flowy dress and a gold wreath of flowers in her hair was more than pretty, she was a stunning beauty. A beauty that all should be blessed to look upon, if only once. None shared her beauty though all would covet it. Tony was speechless, his brain slow and his mouth dry.

“Oh for fuck sake, Tony put your tongue back in your mouth. You love Steve. Remember him? Tall, blond, Adonis, moral compass that could point even you in the right direction? Steve Rogers? Captain fucking America?” Natasha’s voice was slow and feeble in his head. He loved Steve, this was true, but he wasn’t as pretty as the goddess that stood before him. Steve was a guy, sharp hard muscles and scratchy, she was soft and smooth and curvy. He loved Steve, yes. Yes! He loved Steve. That was right. Tall blond guy, built like a god, the very definition of sex on legs. An image of Steve burst behind his eyes breaking Tony from his haze. 

“What the hell?” Tony said, shaking his head and taking a step back from the cage. Trying to put as much distance between him and her. 

“Why are you doing this Julie?” He asked again.

“My name is not Julie,” the woman roared, her face contorted into rage, her eyes turned black and her hair whipped around her. “My name is Morrigan, I am your Goddess and you shall address me as such. I do this,” she waved her hands around the room, “Because of her!” Her long finger pointed to the limp woman still hung in the air. 

“She, in her ordinary existence, stole my love. All three of you have caused me to be rebuffed by those I would mate with. All three of you have caused me pain and prevented me from achieving my goals in finding a replacement for my love. And you will all pay. Samhain is upon us. Tonight you and your spy friend will be my sacrifice. But for now, my dears, you shall watch, as your precious Asgardian’s heart dies.” The Goddess Morrigan turned to the lifeless body of the girl, Tony suddenly knew to be Jane Foster, raised one finger and pointed at Jane’s throat. In one fluid slashing motion, Morrigan slit Jane’s throat. 

Both Tony and Natasha stared in shock up at the floating dead body of Jane. Thick red strands of her life force ran down her body, and dripped on to the earth below. The dirt soaking up the blood as if it was an offering. Natasha blinked and looked around the room, unshed tears in her eyes. It was uncommon to see Natasha show emotion, but Tony knew her heart was breaking for Thor, just like his was. Thor loved Jane, more than anything in the 9 realms, he would be broken. He and Natasha had been useless and unable to stop Jane’s death. He would not begrudge the demigod for blaming them for her death.

Tony was not a praying man, but he prayed to whoever was out there, that Steve and the rest of the team, found them before Natasha and him met the same fate.


	9. No time for Sorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finally gets Tony back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank my beta windeetree for fixing this chapter.

The minute Dr. Banner had told Steve that he may know where Tony and Natasha were, Steve started running to his quarters. He needed to get into his uniform. Steve changed behind the closed door as Bruce talked to him.

“There's a forest, not too far from here. A few hours on the quinjet, tops.” Banner’s muffled voice said through the door as Steve laced up his boots. 

“What makes you think they are there?” Steve yelled through the door, as he stood up and grabbed his shield. 

“Well,” Banner said, as Steve pulled open the door, “It’s a forest, so the fact that it’s showing any gamma activity at all is a red flag, but the gamma signature is exactly the same as the one we found on the assassin eating tree.” Bruce had clearly been hanging out with Tony too long.   
So much snark for the good doctor. 

The comment died before Steve had a chance to voice it. The sounds of thunder and lightning ripped through the air. Steve rand down the corridor to the loading bay where the Demigod would land. Bruce followed behind, his slow walk indicating that he was in no real hurry. As Steve arrived in the bay, Clint landed silently beside him, dropping from somewhere in ventilation. Thor had finally come back. 

“My friends, I need your help.” The look of panic in Thor’s eyes was one Steve had started to recognize. It meant more pain and suffering for the Avengers, Steve wasn’t sure he could take it. The idea that maybe, just maybe, they could find Tony was the only thing that kept him from having a full blown break down.

“Jane Foster is missing. Darcy has informed me a red haired maiden was the last one to be seen with my dearest.” Clint and Bruce all stared at the large blond demigod in shock; this could not be a coincidence. The three most important people to half the Avengers and a good portion of the Avengers themselves had been taken. Steve was sure Jane’s disappearance was the work of the Iron Witch. Though the red haired woman really meant nothing to Steve, it wasn't like they had seen the Witch without the suit on. 

“My friends; Samhain is close, is it not?” Steve didn’t know what that was but Bruce nodded.

“Samhain, it’s a Celtic ritual, marking the beginning of the dark months and the end of harvest season. It refers to winter, but it’s also known as a day when the portal to the underworld is easier to access. People believe that bonfires and slaughtered cows will cleanse them on this day. Though there is way more to it. It typically falls on Halloween.” Steve knew Halloween of course but Samhain, he had never heard of. It sounded like a bunch of witchcraft mumbo jumbo to him, but he had learned not to dismiss anything too easily. After having met two gods, a man of iron and a giant green rage monster after waking from a 70 year sleep, you start to develop a more open mind.

“My brothers in arms, I cannot be truly sure, but I believe this to be the work of Morrigan, a witch that had posed as a goddess here for many years. I have had dealings with her before, but she is not of Asgard.” Thor bowed his head, his chin placed on his chest.

“What sort of dealings?” Clint asked, his voice held little softness. His tone was sceptical and bit on the accusatory side.

“Matter of the heart dear Hawkeye, Morrigan and I were to be betrothed before my exile to Midgard. My father had hoped to unite our Kingdoms. When I fell in love with Lady Jane, I called off the betrothal. Morrigan was very cross and vanished. We had looked all over the 9 realms for her, but with the rainbow bridge gone, Heimdall's eye, doesn’t see as clear as it should. I had never dreamed that she would come back to Midgard after what the Christians did to her.” 

“Would this Morrigan person, have the ability to control the forest? Steve asked, almost sure he knew the answer. 

“Most definitely.” Steve couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lips; once again, Thor has managed to piss off one of his own kind. Of course they brought their wrath against him down on the people of earth. How was that even logical? Why couldn’t they go destroy some other planet?

“Then we need to get moving. Clint, suit up.” 

**

“There is something on the ground, by the trees.” Clint’s keen eyesight spotted the figure at the tree, even before Steve did. As the quinjet tried to touch down, Steve could see what looked like the Iron witch standing unnaturally still against the trunk of a large tree. 

“Get us on the ground!” Steve shouted to the pilot. 

“There isn’t a large enough clearing.”

“Open the hatch then, we’ll jump,” he said as he and Clint donned their parachutes. “Bruce, stay here, I’ll radio if we need the big guy.” Bruce gave a calm nod and settled into a seat need the rear hatch. 

**

“Hawkeye, stay out of the trees,” Steve said over the comm as they both detached from their chutes. Normally Steve wanted Hawkeye up high, where his eyesight could be useful, but this fight was going to have to be leveled on the ground there would be no height advantage on this one.

“Right,” came the quick reply as Hawkeye stepped away from the nearest tree. 

This fight was not going to be easy with Hawkeye grounded. They had Bruce in the jet, but his eyes were nowhere near as sharp as the Hawks, they were at a disadvantage and Steve didn’t like it one bit. 

Within minutes of landing on the ground, the earth began to violently shake. Trees were ripped out of the dirt as a large dome erupted from the earth. 

Thor began to run at the dome but stopped dead in his tracks as he came level with the Iron Witch. The Witch didn’t move as Thor approached her, and Steve couldn’t help but stop and watch. The behavior didn’t track with what he knew about the Witch. 

The roar of rage that Thor let out when he took off the Witches helmet scared Steve. Steve was not an easy person to scare but the primal anger that laced Thor’s scream was something Steve had never heard, nor would he ever want to hear it again. 

Steve recognized the body of Jane Foster, he had read her file. Thor fell to his knees with the limp body held tightly against his chest. As Thor rocked back and forth, the girls, head lulled back, revealing the deep slash across her neck. It was so deep, Steve thought her head was close to falling off, bits of flesh and sinewy muscle were all that held her head to her neck. Steve felt sick. If this was the fate of Jane Foster, missing for only a few hours, no more than a day, what would the fate of Tony and Natasha be?

Thor gently put Jane down, kissed the top of her head and whispered something in her ear. He then grabbed the hammer and stood to his full, commanding height. The skies became grey, electricity crackled all around them. Thor moved to the raised platform in the center of the forest, the protective dome had vanished, leaving a simple altar on a raised piece of land. 

Thunder crashed and lightening rained down upon them, the storm raged as the ground and trees were charred by lightening, but the lightening stayed away from him and Clint. Clint stood stock still some two or three yards from Steve, showing no emotion. 

“Morrigan!” Thor shouted, “You wished to have me here, and here I am.” 

“Why do Thor’s problems always end up here on earth?” Clint asked, having soundlessly moved to stand right next to Steve. Steve had no answer. 

“What’s going on down there,” Bruce’s worried voice came through the comm, “the jet is having issues in the storm.”

Steve didn’t get a chance to respond before Morrigan emerged from wherever her hiding place on the platform was. 

“Isn’t that...?” Clint asked nudging Steve. Steve’s mind was blank as he watched the red haired woman he had come to know so well, stand before them. He was completely speechless. He couldn’t for the life of him understand how his life had come to this. He had had such a normal life for someone living in the depression, He had been sick a lot but he never let it prevent him from living life. Never willing to be bullied, he had found himself a best friend that not only looked after him, but treated him as an equal. He had joined the army under an experimental program; because that was the only way they would take him. He had been given a chance and really that was when life had started going to shit. People would have expected his pre serum life to be crap, but he realized, as he stood on a brand new battle field that perhaps, his old life had been better than he had thought. 

He had found Peggy and that had been a stroke of luck, no denying that. She had also seemed to like him before he had been enhanced. He’d lost Bucky on a mission and then, after everything he had given up or lost, he had crashed in a frozen waste land. Water crashing in on him from all side, freezing him from the inside out as he struggled to breathe through the berage of icy liquid. His body, so enhanced had shut down and he had lost everything. His life, his friends, and the 70 years he had lost. Only to wake up in a strange world, where everyone knew about Captain America but didn’t know anything about Steve Rogers, the little guy from Brooklyn. It had taken him some time to gain any footing in the world he had woken up to. With all its technology and ways of thinking, it felt like a future someone could have only dreamed about. He had learned about the big points in history that he had missed and he had done it with the help of Tony Stark the son of a man he had at one point believed to be a nice guy and a guy he had counted as a friend. He had been helped by Clint and Nat on matters of the heart and it had been them that had helped him pluck up the courage to finally ask Julie out. He had never been very good with women and his becoming a super soldier hardly changed that. The serum changed his body; it didn’t change his ability to fuck things up. 

Yet now that he had been awake in this time for 2 years he stood watching his life play out, as if he was a spectator and merely watching a game. Divorced, in love with his male best friend (something that just didn't fucking happen in the 1940s, and if it did, no one, NO ONE talked about it), and attempting to save said best friend from said ex-wife. This could not possibly be his life! How had this happened? He just couldn’t see the roads linking up and leading to this point, but somehow they did. 

“Oh good, you’ve all arrived.” Julie’s or Morrigan’s voice broke Steve from his internal angst. “It’s almost dark; you’re just in time for the sacrifice.” Did she say sacrifice? Steve looked at Clint, hoping he had misheard, but judging by the look of horror Clint was sporting on his typically stoic face, he had heard right. 

“Oh my god,” Clint said, causing Steve to turn his attention back to the Witch. A giant pyre was raised higher on the platform, Attached to the tall wooden poles were Tony and Natasha. Steve felt his heart drop. 

“Morrigan, you must stop this at once, your anger is with me, leave them out of this.” Thor said, Steve could see the pain in his eyes, but the god stayed firm in his course of action. The mental breakdown would come later, Steve was sure of it, but for now he was holding himself together, and Steve was grateful. 

Morrigan started to laugh, her laugh was cold, and caused the hair on the back of Steve’s neck to stand on end. 

“Stop this? My dear stupid Asgardian, there will be no stopping this. In a few moments, the sun with set, and the flames of my anger will take physical form. They will eat at the flesh and the bone of the ones you love and you will watch as they die. Hear their screams and know that you are the reason they are dying. Their sacrifice will be all I need to open the portal to my realm and rain the scorned gods and goddesses of my world upon your head, there will be death and destruction. Pain and suffering and I will take comfort in knowing that I helped bring earth and her mightiest heroes to their knees.” Not about to allow anything of that nature to happen, Steve began to run at Morrigan, he didn’t know what he was going to do; just that he had to do something to stop her. Steve was almost to a spot where he could find leverage and jump up the wall of dirt and land on the platform when a root grabbed him around the waist. 

“I don’t think so my dear husband,” her voice was a sneer, and so different than what he was used to hearing. This woman whom he had shared his bed with for a year, was not the woman he thought she was. Which in all honesty was a stupid thought; he never could have imagined that a goddess would pose as an engineer and seduce him. 

He wished Thor had been around for the 2 years that he was with Julie; all of his pain could have been avoided. He never would have gotten married to a crazed goddess on a vengeance path because Thor would have known who she was instantly. 

“Release them at once, Morrigan, your fight is with me, not the people of Midgard.” 

“It is not always all about you,” she snapped at Thor. “Oh sure, it started out about you. I want to hurt you the way you hurt me. I wanted to see you fall to your knees as I tore out your heart and fed it to my crows. But I slit her throat instead.” There was a manic glint in Morrigan’s eyes as she talked. 

“But this,” she said waving a hand behind her, to where Tony and Natasha stood bound and gagged, “is your precious Captain's fault. They will die; this whole world will die, because of Captain America. All I have ever wanted was love, is that too much to ask for?” Her voice was tight and rigid as she paced back and forth.

“I did love you!” Steve shouted as he struggled against the root, he needed to get his shield off his back. “I would have given you the world, if you would have let me.” 

“Liar! You loved him more.” She shouted, her hair bursting into flames. “You may not have realized it, but you gave him your heart, long before you gave me what was left. You’re precious Iron Man. He shall burn first; his death shall set in motion the burning of this world. 

Steve watched as Morrigan lifted herself into the air, her arms spread out; head tilted to the sky, and began to chant. The sun drifted down as Thor’s storm was forced to dissipate, the setting of the sun painted the sky orange and the wood that Tony and Natasha stood on and around, burst into flames. 

“Tony!” Steve shouted.

Clint’s struggles against the roots became frantic, they both fought as hard as they could against the roots. Steve’s shield slipped and he was able to grabbed it and slice the root holding him. The tree made a strange sound and its grip loosened enough for him to slip out. The bushed and other trees were coming to life and he couldn't get to Clint to free him. Thor was surrounded but plant life as it closed in on him, Steve knew they only had one option. 

“Dr. Banner,” Steve said in his comm as he leapt over bushes to get to Clint, “We need the Hulk, get Tony and Natasha.” As he reached Clint, the roar of pure rage met his ears and the earth shook again but this time for entirely different reasons. The Hulk burst through the trees and ran straight for the fire. Trees covered him and he ripped and tore at the verge, smashing them together, splintering them and littering their remains around the forest floor. 

Thor had Morrigan engaged in battle and Hawkeye had been set free by a well placed slice from Steve’s shield. The Hulk was too busy with the trees to get to the pyre. That left Clint and him, so he started to climb the rock and root littered platform, one of Hawkeye’s arrows allowed himself to be pulled up the platform. Both men reaching the top the at the same time. 

Through the smoke and haze of the fire Steve could see Tony struggling against his bonds, but Natasha was motionless. 

“How do we get over to them?” Clint asked, the crack of panic in his voice betraying him. 

“I’ll jump,” Steve said, “My shield is fire proof.” 

“Yeah, but you aren’t,” Clint said, his arm on Steve’s holding him back. 

“True, but if I don’t go, they die. If it’s a choice between them or me, Clint, I choose them.” and Clint released his grip on Steve, which allowed Steve to run at the flames. His shield hacking at the wood on fire, trying to make a path. He didn't care that the flames were licking at his skin or that his uniform was torn and singed in places, all he cared about, was getting to Tony and Natasha. Jumping the last of the flames, Steve got to Tony first. 

“You came.” Tony said his voice raw and soft.

 

“Of course I came,” Steve said. 

He wanted so badly to tell the dark haired man that Morrigan was right. He knew now, after seeing Tony in harms way, the exact depth of his feelings for Tony Stark. The realization rocked him to his very core, he had never loved anyone the way he loved the man in front of him. He wanted to tell the world how much that man meant to him, but he was scared and Steve was tired of being scared. He hated the feeling, he never used to let it control him, but in the last few months, his life was riddled with fear and ruled by it. 

He was scared to lose the love of the man before him. Scared that he never really had it to begin with. Scared that expressing his feelings would fracture their friendship. It hadn’t been like that when he asked Julie out, or Morrigan he supposed. He hadn’t had anything to lose if she had said no. It wasn’t like they had been great friends before their first date. But Tony was his BEST friend. There was so much that could be lost if Steve expressed his feelings. They lived together and worked together for God’s sake! Could he really take that risk? In the middle of a battle wasn’t the time to find out so Steve held his tongue. Instead he cut the bindings that tied Tony and Natasha to the fire. 

“Can you walk?” Tony nodded as he hoisted Natasha’s unconscious body over his shoulder. They walked through the fire before Steve grabbed Tony and leapt from the platform. 

“Holy shit,” he heard Tony exclaim as he landed lightly on the ground. as if his he carried no extra weight. It made him smile, to hear the surprise in his voice. He set both Tony and Natasha on the ground, as far away from the fight as possible. 

“I will always come for you.” He said. A loud crack of thunder caught his attention and made him turn away from the pair, as Tony collapsed on the ground. He wanted nothing more than to hold Tony and stay with Natasha until the medics arrived but he needed to finish this fight. Thor and the Hulk needed help. Hawkeye had silently joined Tony and Natasha. It had been a bit unnerving –when he had first met the man-- how Hawkeye just sometimes materialized out of thin air, but Steve was grateful he was there. He nodded at Steve and sunk down on the grass cradling Natasha. Steve knew they were being looked after. He had unfinished business.


	10. Never letting go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. The very end of the story. I hope you have enjoyed this. Thank you to everyone that read, commented or left kudos it means so much to me. Thank you to my Beta Windeetree for fixing my stuff. You are amazing. I can't wait to see you all for my next story. I have 3 in the works right now.

Tony was tired, beyond tired actually. He was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. A crazy woman, witch, goddess -Tony didn't know what to call her- had just tried to burn him alive. Tired was an understatement for what he felt. What he really wanted to do was take a nice warm shower and curl up naked in his big squishy bed and sleep for days. If a big blond spangly guy wanted to accompany him Tony would not say no. 

His eyes wanted to shut on him as sat next to the unconscious Natasha, and Clint, who was folded around Natasha, rocking her slightly, with his eyes closed. In all honesty, it looked like he was praying. Tony knew Nat was ok but it was kind of a shock to see Clint’s behavior. He had figured they had nothing more than a sexual relationship, but looking at the way Clint held her and the few drops of tears that clung to his eyelashes, Tony could easily tell that Clint and Natasha were much more than fuck buddies. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that Clint loved Natasha. Part of him wondered if Natasha felt the same way. Natasha wasn’t one for grand gestures and showing emotions, he never knew what went on in her head. 

Leaning back against a smashed tree root, Tony forced himself to keep his eyes open. He couldn’t sleep, not while Steve was still in harms way. With Morrigan’s plan blown, she really had nothing to lose. Tony knew her anger toward Steve was the only thing keeping her going. Steve’s uniform was tattered and burnt from his daring fire rescue and Tony could see holes in the back. The loops that typically held his shield were gone, leaving patches of bare skin. Tony didn’t know how that had happened, but he made a mental note to reinforce those loops better when he redid the suit. 

Steve had joined Thor in the fight against Morrigan. They worked well together normally, but Tony could see a problem. Neither man was gaining any ground against the fiery red head. She knew both of them too well, every move they made she rebuffed or threw back at them. Steve could hardly get close enough to her to get the shield in throwing distance and Thor’s lightning was deflected. 

“Clint,” Tony rasped. His voice was sore from the smoke he’d inhaled. 

“Yeah,” the spy said and he turned his head slightly to look at Tony, not moving from his position with Natasha. 

“Give me your, comm.” Clint didn’t ask why, he just pulled it from his shirt and tossed it to Tony. Tony’s sore tired hands caught the comm with ease and fixed it to his spandex flight suit. He vaguely wondered what Morrigan had done with his iron man suit but, it was not the time or the place to worry about that. He had protocols in place if the suit ever fell into enemy hands. Jervis had probably already detonated the self destruct protocol. 

Tony was shaking; it hadn’t occurred to him just how weak he really was after his weeks of captivity. The bitch had fed him and given him water, but just enough to keep him alive. 

Even his spandex suit felt loose on him and he didn’t think it was because he’s been wearing it for a few weeks straight. He was thankful she wasn't abusive and she clearly didn’t know the fine art of torture, for which he truly was grateful, but it didn’t change the fact that he hated the bitch, and would like more than to spit on her grave. 

“Steve,” Tony said through the comm, trying to steady his shaky voice. 

“Kind. Of. Busy. Tony.” Steve said as he threw his shield at his attacker. The shield was returned to him with such force that he had no chance of catching it and the hit to his chest sent him flying back into a tree. The blow of Captain America against the tree caused the tree to snap and fall. Tony could see the Hulk in the background having way too much fun smashing trees and shrubs and pretty much anything leafy. 

“We can. Talk. After.” Steve said, pulling himself from the splintered wreckage of the tree and picking up his shield again, readying himself for the next part of the fight. If there was one thing everyone should know about Steve Rogers, it was that he never gave up.  
“I have an idea.” Tony shouts into the comm. “Morrigan knows you both too well. She is expecting your movies individually-” 

“Get on with the plan part, metal man.” Thor says, breaking Tony and Steve’s conversation. Thor was angry and impatient and Tony understand, because Thor has every right to be. He has lost more in this fight than anyone. 

“Aim your lightning towards Steve’s shield, Steve, angle your shield so that the blast hits her somewhere in the midsection. It should take the wind out of her sails long enough for you to get close.” 

“Morrigan is not sailing anywhere...” Thor said, his voice laced with confusion and Tony, even in his exhausted state can still find amusement in Thor’s lack of understand of midgardian euphemisms. 

Thor’s lightning bounced off Steve’s shield, hitting Morrigan square in the chest causing her to double over, clutching at her stomach. The action allowed Steve the leverage he needed to get near enough to her, to throw the shield and not have it returned by her. Not one for large displays of violence towards women, Tony was shocked when the shield hit Morrigan and comes back to Steve just in time for him to land his patented shield smash into the side of her head. Morrigan’s hair loses its fire and her body crashed to the forest floor. The trees around them go still and the silence of the forest is eerie, but not unwelcome. A smile pulls at the corner of Tony’s lips, they’d done it, they had won. 

He could feel the last of the adrenaline leave his body as Steve turned to look at him. The tug of his eyelids were strong and he was dizzy from exhaustion, “My man,” was the last thing he said, not realizing his comm was still open, as he fell into a dreamless sleep. 

“Tony,” Steve shouted, abandoning Thor. Tony had passed out. Which Steve wasn’t that shocked by, it had been what he had said just before he had passed out that confused Steve. He wanted to know what Tony meant. 

Reaching Tony, Steve picked him up bridal style. He would not dare wake the man, no matter how badly he wanted to know what he meant. Tony needed a hospital. As he turned to walk away S.H.I.E.L.D agents were descending upon Morrigan. Clint had Natasha in his arms and Thor, Steve bowed his head. Thor was sitting in the dirt, cradling the lifeless body of Jane Foster. Steve watched in shock as the Hulk walked slowly over to Thor, gently, well as gently as the Hulk could do anything, sat on the ground and wrapped his big green arms around the demi god. Thor released Jane’s body and curled into the strong arms of the Hulk. Tony moved slightly in Steve’s arms spurring him into action.

With grace and agility Steve got Tony to the quinjet without much jostling.  
**  
Three days had passed since the fight, three days Steve had sat, unmoving -- still in his battle torn uniform -- next to Tony’s bedside, in the uncomfortable hospital chairs. Three days, Tony slept, but on the fourth day, Steve saw those beautiful brown eyes flutter open and Steve smiled. Tony was back and Steve wasn’t ever going to let him go again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear not, there will be more, this is simply the end of how Steve realized he loved Tony. There will be more.

**Author's Note:**

> Well now, this should be an interesting ride. Did you like it?


End file.
